Tag Archives: Grey Knights

From her perfect vantage point atop the agri-silo, the Autarch rained down missile death on the Grey Knights, but paused when her name and gender came into question.

So Harry and I played our fifth small game a week or two ago. The forces were the same as the last game. This time we played table quarters and there were 5 objectives for my Grey Knights to wrest away from the Eldar.

Those damn Warp Spiders

Ah, look at the pretty Grey Knights below. Now let the Warp Spiders let loose on them and then we have not so many pretty Grey Knights.

Seriously as long as I continue to have nice bits of terrain for the Warp Spiders to hide behind they will haunt me. Also Dire Avenger Exarchs shooting 4 shots that almost never miss is a pain too. My squads really wanted to get their hands on this cool objective Harry made:

Witness how one Exarch can dominate and take control of the objective himself.

The game came down to troops choices and claiming objectives. Harry had a very intact squad of Dire Avengers claiming their objective. A critical moment was when my Justicar, alone and abandoned by his fallen squadmates was himself abandoned by the Emperor in close combat with the Swooping Hawks. He might have killed one of their number, but it was not enough to send them packing. I was indeed surprised when they Sky Leapt out of combat the next turn.

The last of my troops were killed in the games final turns and my Brother Captain was all alone to enjoy the spoils of a captured dead female Eldar.

So that brought my Grey Knights to 3-2 versus Harry’s Eldar. But Harry differentiates between his Amaris (?) Vertigo Tribe Eldar that I just faced and his Guardian-inclusive other Eldar.

Game 6: Grey Knights versus … Dark Eldar???

This morning Harry and I had planned on playing a 1000 point game. Harry planned, I just worked and worried about some other things I have going on. But I was also worried about what Harry might have added to bump his force up from 750 to 1000. I incorrectly reasoned that it might be a Falcon gravtank that he had finished and decided to proxy a Dreadnought armed with a Twin-Linked Autocannon and CCW w/Storm Bolter. Trying to get to 1000 points I thought: why not? And took an identical GK Dreadnought. I also took a micro squad of 3 Terminators, two squads of 7 GKs with Justicars, and a 5 man GK squad.

I noticed Harry’s Dark Eldar book out and he explained that why yes, this would indeed be the force I’d be playing. We rolled Annihilation and table quarters and he let me go first.

Amidst explanations of Disintegrators, Splinter Rifles, Splinter Cannons(?), Shredders, Blasters, etc. my Dreadnoughts opened fire and blew apart two of his Raiders and I picked off a Scourge or two, I think.

The game essentially kept going that way for me. I lost the 5 man GK squad and the sole remaining member of a squad with a Shredder fell back for the rest of the game and along with his Drachon were the two last remaining DE alive. The Drachon took out 2 of my GK Terminators and was locked in combat with the squad’s Brother Captain when we shook hands to end the game.

Denying Armor Saves is very nice to experience! So is having most of your army around at the end of a game! :-p Phew.

Harry and I had our 4th game with his Eldar and my Grey Knights. The first had been 600 and the last three have all been 750. The last two games I hadn’t taken a HQ, but decided that if he were losing the points in his Farseer getting taken down easily, I could throw in my own 61 pt. Brother Captain. My list was also very different this time because I didn’t take any psycannons and had 4 squads:

Brother Captain

2 squads of 5 GKs w/Justicar

2 squads of 6 GKs w/Justicars + a flamer in a squad (to get closer to 750)

With the Brother Captain in my Dreadnought had to go (I thought for some reason), so I instead made some small squads. I took out the psycannons because while I like them, once I am in assault, I just have 1 S4 attack.

Harry had an Autarch with a Dark Reaper launcher, three squads of Dire Avengers with 4 shots for the Exarchs, a squad of 6-7 Warp Spiders, and 6 Swooping Hawks including the Exarch.

I think it was also the first game against Harry that I went first. I set up. Then Harry set up. I reminded him of the Shrouding when I saw how far away his Autarch was, but he kept him far away.

We were playing Capture and Control with long table edges. Harry set up his objective behind this mesa and then sneakily used his Warp Spiders to play a small game.

Now you see us…

NOW you don’t.

I wasted my first turn with the Brother Captain and squad of 6 keeping them behind a hill and not moving them forward. Basically the game moved forward with me driving off one of his Guard- oops, Dire Avenger squads and then the remnants of two squads assaulted into his second Dire Avengers squad. The remaining Dire Avengers annihilated one of my Grey Knight squads in a single round of shooting (without Blade Storm)! waaaaaa, I sobbed. His Autarch kept lobbing missiles over, but wait: oh yeah, the Shrouding, nope, sorry. Turn 4 and Turn 5 the Autarch started shooting and hitting my Brother Captain to no effect.

Meanwhile the Swooping Hawks kept swooping in making their puny bombing run. However on one swoop, Harry deviated them into difficult terrain. They all made dangerous terrain tests and their Exarch rolled a 1 and died! haha Then I was able to assault that squad with the Brother Captain who saw them off.

The game really came down to my having 0 troops left. The only thing I had was the Brother Captain with 1 wound on him. But Harry only had part of a Dire Avengers squad which I was getting very close to. At the last moment of Turn 5 I had one 2+ Armor Save to make on him and I rolled a 1. Otherwise we quite possibly would have had a draw.

FINAL THOUGHTS

God, the game got very small pretty quickly! I’ve never played Kill Team, but when I’m rolling 4 dice for shooting for a squad of 2, I imagine it must feel like that. Harry did a very good job of putting his tough unit of Warp Spiders with their 3+ save 1.) behind the mesa but also 2.) near the Dire Avengers. To take the Warp Spiders down I had to get close to assault and open myself up to all those Dire Avenger shots.

Listening to one of the 11th Company Podcasts suggested by Walter, I was surprised that they say that Warp Spiders are a joke. They move 12″, shoot 12″ 3s to hit, 2+ to wound (Str 6). Ouch. Then Warp back 2d6.

Harry and I played again Monday morning, his Eldar versus my Grey Knights. It was another 750 point game.

Harry had some Fire Dragons, a small Guardian squad with a Scatter Laser, two Guardian Jetbike squadrons, a Farseer, Dire Avengers, and some Kroot Mercenaries he was very excited about fielding, especially in the jungle.

Turn 2 opened with his 6 FIre Dragons opening fire on my Grey Knights, killing 6! :-/ But then I excitedly remembered that they were in cover. And then I rolled cover saves and only 1 made it, so there went 125 points. His Dire Avengers then laid into the same squad and killed three more. He also blew the twin-linked lascannon off of my Dread which spent the rest of the game either stunned or trying to run into close combat, but not doing anything else but be a fire magnet.

At this point I was very demoralized!! Squad Azulus with just the Justicar and GK with Psycannon opened fire on the Fire Dragons and assaulted them, beating them bloody, causing them to fail their Morale, and I GOT the Sweeping Advance roll on them, my two guys wiping them out. Next turn the Dire Avengers charged them. My two guys survived it and dished out death to the entire squad as well. Then they took aim at the Farseer and shot him up. Having accomplished so much, I think they went down from some Kroot rifle fire.

The game stretched on to Turn 6 or 7 and I won because it was the Kill Points mission and I had 3 KPs vs. his 1. Not “having my army evaporate by turn 4” was enjoyable for Harry haha. Hmmn, the 3+ cover saves for the Kroot in the woods was annoying as was the Eldar Jet Bikes’ 3+ saves too. In my opinion I was lucky that the Dreadnought got so much of Harry’s Strength 6 fire because it could have been a lot more dead GKs.

This game was very different from most of our other games. I am not used to having to go to Harry and be the aggressor. When we play Dark Age, St. Mark forces him to come out. Most of our Star Wars games Harry has Jedi or something else that excels at getting up close so I’m usually trying to evade. Even in Heroclix I might have a lot of Ranged Combat Expert going on. But here is his army towards the end, backing up to the very edge of the board or staying in that nice cushy cover not that I blame them/him:

In small games against pointy-eared Xenos, Grey Knights carry the day.

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve seen him last, but Harry and I got together last week and this to play – of all things – some 40k. He’s been working on an Eldar army and got a major boost to his forces when someone sent him an entire army.

So in this first battle, we had 600 points. I took 2 9-man GK squads with a psycanon in each. He had some tender Guardians, shooty Dire Avengers, and pathetic Fire Dragons.

Here is what we do to the last Fire Dragon!

Battle, the Second

Then he came over today and this time we had a 750 point battle. I added a non-WYSIWYG Dreadnought with a CCW and twin-linked lascannon. You can see the wrecked Vyper behind the trees. Harry had never seen so many failed Morale checks. I hadn’t either! Both of his Guardian squads took off. His Howling Banshees took off. His Dire Avengers took off. All ran away! The Autarch alone remained and was soon cut down.

4E Forgotten Realms campaign

One thing that’s been on hold for a while now because of my mother’s death and then not feeling up to it or not being done with the dungeon is our 4th Edition Forgotten Realms campaign. I’m excited for it to resume though.

One thing I’ve been working on for it is a Hirst Arts dungeon that they might be exploring in the next session or two. I cast a lot back in June and even made my first mold to help speed up the dungeon creation. Here’s a little layout. If my players read this, it will be a slight spoiler.

Since last posting in January, both of my brother-in-laws have joined the party, so now I have 5 PCs. Christel is up to 3rd level as is Azrid the warden. I actually want to post about the campaign more in depth, but will do that later.

I reread the Avatar Trilogy to help flavor the D&D campaign and just reread Azure Bonds too. It’s better than I remembered.